Goodbye
by Soundslikeit
Summary: Elena comes back for Stefan, she always would.


"You're happy?" She asks him, a tremble to her voice. He looks ashamed for a minute, his brow wrinkling, the lines coming to live as they dance along his face, but soon a smile stretches across his face.

"I got everything I ever wanted, Elena." He tells her, tucking a lose strand behind her hair. She licks her lips, and tries not to cry. This isn't how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to love _her. _She crosses her arms, and wishes that she'd never come back.

She'd vowed not to. She really had, but she had to _know. _It consumed her. Was he happy without her?

Because she wasn't happy without him, she wasn't _Elena. _

"You don't regret it?" He laughs, and her stomach twists in knots. She's clinging on to pure hope, that maybe- just _maybe, _if he regrets it, she can let him go. She just need to know that he loved her, and that he's always _loved her_. If he loves her, then Elena Gilbert still exists, and has something to exist for.

"Its been fifty eight years, Elena. I'm seventy five years old, and I don't regret a day of it. I've done everything I ever wanted to do. I bought a house, fell in love, untainted love, bought a house, got a job, and had seven kids. I got everything I always wanted." It's like he's taken the air of her lungs, turning her own words on. But she doesn't think he's doing it to hurt her.

A part of her wished he was, that he was bitter, and scorned.

"Seven kids?" She asks, wondering why she's still standing on one side of the door, and why he has yet to invite her in.

"Seven. Although there hardly kids now. The eldest is fifty. Fifty!" He laughs, and for a minute, she thinks of her own Dad. "Twenty eight beautiful grandkids, and one great grand baby."

"Wow." Elena says, biting her tongue.

"My youngest, Lexi, she's only twenty. Honestly she was a big surprise, but we wouldn't have it any other way." She nods, the words catching in her throat. _Say you love me, _she pleads, but the words die on the tip of her tongue. "Any regrets?" He asks her, and she nods.

"I regret not taking the cure." And Stefan marvels at how she still looks eighteen, still beautiful. "I don't regret, Damon." She whispers, and it tastes like a lie. "I was happy, but only because it wasn't intense. I was scared of the intensity." He nods, a sympathetic smile on his face. So different, yet so Stefan, and she wishes she were standing across from him, wrinkles, lines, and scars littering her body. Her kids sitting inside, photos of her lifetime on the walls, but it's not, and it never will be.

"Rebekah will be back soon." He says, and she seems almost taken aback, because this can't be it.

"Don't you love me?" She asks, sounding weak, and child like.

"I remember-" He starts, seeming somewhere distant, somewhere far away. "what it was like to love you. My God, did I love you." He smiles, and she smiles too. "I remember how much I loved you, and how hard it was to let you go."

"You don't have to." She tells him, reaching forward, but he steps out of her grip.

"You were gone, Elena, long before the last time I saw you. And I remember, what it was like to mourn you, and realize that you weren't coming back. It hurt for years, and when I held my baby boy for the first time, I thought of you for a second, and I thought about the last time I'd thought of you. It had been years I thought. And I almost felt guilty that I'd stopped thinking about you. I'd moved on, and hadn't even realized it."

"Stefan."

"And I looked at my baby boy, and thought of how much I loved him, and Rebekah. How it was all I'd ever wanted. How you were happy. I just let it all go, Elena, I let everything go, and I lived my damn life."

"Don't you wish it were me, Stefan?" She hates the words as they tumble from her mouth. "That it were me, and not _her."_ He merely shakes his head, not justifying her question.

"Be happy, Elena. Let the guilt go. I did." He says, and she opens her mouth to protest.

"I can't." Stefan grips the door handle.

"I loved you, Elena." He says, and she's shocked by the anger in his voice. "It wasn't enough." She gasps, and makes another attempt for the door.

"Stefan, I love you. I've loved you every single day of my life." She tells him,

"I lived my life, Elena. I wouldn't trade this one lifetime for a million with you." He whispers, and she sees how tired he looks for the first time. He steps forward finally, placing a kiss gingerly on her forehead, and Elena hates how it feels like a goodbye.


End file.
